In the photo on the left, you see the remains of somebody’s stripped-down car. The photo on the right shows a Hyundai on the moon. I’m not sure, but I think that particular model of Hyundai is named “Tucson”. There must not be very many cars on the moon yet, because there is no visible smog.
The above photos have nothing to do with the title of today’s post nor do they have anything to do with today’s rowing. But I thought it was interesting that a lot of people have put cars and other things on the surface of the moon…. so why not a Concept 2 rowing machine? Diane volunteered to help put a rowing machine on the moon, so maybe soon … because she is a space cadet with the skills to do it.
The rower that I tried to get to race with me is the one who is going by the moniker of Meerkat.
Today’s blog post title was inspired by today’s rowing, which was a 30 minute online session with 12 other people. The above screen shot shows the Oarbits’ listing of the session results. The rower who is shown in 10th place is the one who called himself (or herself) Meerkat.
In case you happen to be a person who doesn’t know what a meerkat is, the above photo shows five of them hanging out together. They are a close-knit society of creatures who have a lot of fans in the society of people who like cute furry creatures. Diane is among the meerkat fans, but not exclusively. Diane is also a fan of squirrels, prairie dogs, beavers, otters, etc.
I paced Meerkat to stay within less than 1 meter of him (or her) throughout the first 23 minutes or so and then I increased my pace, to try to get Meerkat to row faster so we could perhaps have a fun race to the finish.
But Meerkat wouldn’t take the bait, so I raced my own shadow and the result was a tie.
Finish screenshot for today’s 30 minute online session. On this screenshot, Meerkat shows to be in 9th place. I don’t know why the Oarbits results show the same rower in 10th place.Report for today’s 30 minute online session.RowPro graphs for today’s 30 minute online session. I don’t know why the heart rate graph is so messy. Quite a few factors can affect it, including battery charge level, lack of sufficient moisture on skin and also whether the heart strap band is sufficiently snug around the chest.Concept 2 online logbook’s version of graphs for today’s 30 minute online session.
Happy rowing to you and your shadow and anyone who will race with the two of you.
A horse could run faster on only 3 legs, in the gravity of the moon, than it could run on all 4 legs in the gravity of earth. (the artist who made this picture is unknown but has a lot of talent because I’m guessing that he or she was very young when the picture was made.)
Part of the rationale for today’s title is the fact that the pull of gravity for someone on the Moon is only about 17% as much as the pull of gravity for someone on earth. If a horse which was accustomed to the gravity on earth were to experience gravity only 17% as strong, it could probably run faster on three legs in that weaker gravity, than it could run on 4 legs on earth. Keep that in mind when you read about the second online rowing session that I did today.
Today’s indoor rowing consisted of a 5 minute ultra slow session which I will call session 0 (zero) because it was almost zero effort. The main session was going to be limited to a single 30 minute online session. But one of the guys, who happened to be in Portugal (not that it matters, but I think its cool that people all over the world can row together online), asked if anyone would like to join him in a second 30 minute session, because he wanted to do more meters.
Nobody else wanted to, so I asked him what pace he would row the second 30 minute session. He said “Slowly, about 2:05.”
I replied, “I’m 71 and 2:05 is fastly for me.”
One of the other guys, who is located in Connecticut, chimed in with “LOL” and then added “Bigly fastly.” It was a joke which I immediately understood since I’ve been keeping up with current events in America but I don’t know whether any of the rowers in other parts of the world understood it.
Anyway, the guy in Portugal then said he could row the second 30 minutes slower, at between 2:10 and 2:15. I told him that I’d row with him at a pace of 2:10 and that when the 30 minute timer counted down to 4 minutes remaining, I’d increase my pace to around 2:00 and then he could see how many meters he could finish ahead of me.
So the two of us rowed the second 30 minute session and when the time counted down to 4 minutes remaining, I changed my pace from 2:10 to 2:00. At first, the other guy kept on rowing at the slower pace. But then he seemed to notice and he picked up his pace to around 1:52 and caught up to me. But he didn’t stay at the 1:52 pace and pass me. Instead, he slowed to match my pace for the remainder of the few minutes left and we finished almost even with each other.
Afterwards, I told him that I’d expected that he’d have finished about 100 meters ahead of me. Paraphrasing his reply, he said, “I was rowing with only one leg. I’ve got a cramp in the other leg. LOL”
So… If he had been located on the moon and rowing online from there…. he could have rowed a lot faster than me, even with only one good leg and the other leg cramped. I think everyone could row a huge amount faster, if gravity were only 17%.
Today’s rowing added up to more meters than I’d originally intended, but I’ll probably sleep better tonight because of it.
Finish screen for the first of two 30 minute sessions.Report for the first of two 30 minute sessions.Graphs for the first of two 30 minute sessions. The heart rate graph is messy in the first session because the heart strap battery is weak and the heart strap wasn’t 100% wet.Finish screen for the second and faster of today’s two 30 minute sessions.Report for the second and faster of today’s two 30 minute sessions.Graphs for the second and faster of today’s two 30 minute sessions. The heart rate graph is NOT messy for this session because it was 100% completely wet by the time this session started.
Happy rowing to you, whatever your gravity may be and however many arms and legs you have full use of.
This is a screen shot of one of the features of an Apple Watch app which is called Sleep Watch.
The title of today’s blog post is from among the words in a recent message generated by the sleep-tracking app that I’ve been using for quite a while. The app has a feature called “Discover,” which, if enabled, tries to find significant correlations between the health information that it has been given access to and my nightly sleep. As you see in the screenshot of its recent “Discover” message, there is more reason to believe that exercise is healthy for you.
Today’s indoor rowing was shorter than recent usual. Instead of doing at least 10K, I did only 5K. I will be doing shorter sessions between now and November 24th. On November 25th, I’ll start doing longer sessions of from 10K to half marathon or more per day and will continue doing longer sessions through December 25th. The reason for that is because Concept 2 is having its annual charity challenge and for everyone who participates, Concept 2 donates a few cents per 1,000 meters to one of the charities that they have pre-selected.
Today’s 5K piece was done online with 3 others. Two of the others were in Europe and one, besides myself, was in the U.S. The original tentative “plan” for today’s 5K was to do it at a pace of 2:02 or faster, so as to move up in the 5K world rankings at least one position. Those were very tentative plans. I ate lunch about 30 minutes before the rowing session and didn’t have time for any warm up.
After a little over 2,000 meters, I decided to slow down and do the remainder of the 5K at a warm down pace. When the remaining distance was 1,000 meters, I increased the pace to whatever it took, to keep the overall average pace at about 2:15. There was no particular reason or motivation for doing it that way – it’s just what I happened to feel like and agree to within my own mind, during the piece.
Session report for today’s online 5K piece. The session was done in the early afternoon, starting at about 1 pm locally. The guy who scheduled it named it Saturday Evening Row because he is located in Norway and it was early evening for him.RowPro graphs for today’s online 5K piece.Concept 2 online logbook graphs for today’s online 5K piece.
Happy rowing to you, whether short or long distance.
I couldn’t find a picture of a rowing machine on the moon. Diane says she can make a picture like that for me, for use sometime in the future.
Today for the first time in quite a few sessions, I rowed online with a few other people instead of alone. But things didn’t go perfectly smoothly. Something went wrong with the RowPro server, which is located in Houston. Four people started out together, then the server announced that there was a “false start” but it showed two people to be rowing. One of them never came back. The other one, though he appeared to be rowing (because his chat room avatar turned into circular arrows) actually was still there, because his avatar turned into a pencil when he started typing to inform the other two of us that he was still there.
So… three of us set up a QR which stands for “Quick Row” which means it is an unscheduled row and we rowed together. I don’t know what happened to the 4th guy. He may still be tangled up in the Houston server.
The session online was 10,000 meters. Before it started, I warmed up with 10 minutes very easy. During the 10K, I rowed the first 1K at about 2:20, then picked up the pace to around 2:15 which was also about 130 BPM heart rate today. (It varies from day to day). For the last 1,000 meters, I went faster so as to elevate the heart rate with a little bit of semi-high intensity sort of rowing, but not too hard.
Afterwards, we said good bye to each other then I did 5 minutes of supplemental rowing. Because it’s almost dinner time now, I’m not going to take the time to include screenshots of the 10 minute or 5 minute sessions and will only show the 10K session screenshots.
Finish screen for today’s main session, the 10K.Report for today’s main session, the 10K.RowPro graphs for today’s main session, the 10K.Apple Watch graph of heart rate for two minute recovery time immediately after stopped rowing the 10K.
A guy who’s new to rowing but not that new to other exercise said, “I get a little crabby when I’m not able to get my workouts in.” It seems that he has achieved a positive addiction to something that is healthy. That’s something to be happy about 🙂 and I know he is, because he said that since he’s taken to doing some daily exercise, he feels better than he has “in the last 15 years.”
I’m happy for him.
Happily, I too managed to do some exercise today. It was mostly indoor rowing. The main session was 10,000 meters which was done at its slowest pace for the first 1,000 meters as a warm up. For the next 7,000 meters, it was done at an easy pace with a target heart rate of from around 130 to 140. While I was rowing those 7,000 meters, the “Projected Finish” time on the rowing machine’s monitor would vary between 44 and 45 minutes.
For the last 2,000 meters, it was done at whatever pace it took to make the “Projected Finish” time on the monitor show 44:00 or less, with 44:00 being the target.
Afterwards, I rested for about 3 to 5 minutes, so the Apple Watch could measure and graph HR recovery. Then I did an additional 5 minutes very easy, to get a few hundred more supplemental meters, to help keep my daily average above 10K per day.
Finish screen for today’s 10K session.Report for today’s 10K session.RowPro’s graphs for today’s 10K session.Concept 2 online logbook’s graphs for today’s 10K session.Since the latest Apple Watch update, I like to look at its feature which shows heart rate recovery after exercise. It is only relevant if HR gets somewhat elevated. The watch only stores the HR recovery graphs like this for workouts done that day. (The next day, when you do workouts, those results overwrite the previous day’s). This shows HR recovery for today’s 10K session.The Apple Watch workout graphs only show heart rate versus time for workouts logged with the watch. It’s not as much information as provided by RowPro and the rowing machine, but it’s nice that the watch has that new feature. This is its graph for today’s 10K session.Finish screen for the easy, lazy 5 minutes of rowing to get a few more meters after today’s main rowing.Report for the 5 minutes.Graphs for the 5 minutes.
Today’s indoor rowing started with a 10K session which was done at a pace of 2:20/500 meters. It served as a warmup for the “race” which followed. The Apple Watch graph of HR recovery for two minutes immediately following the 10K warmup is below this paragraph:
The “race” was 4 intervals of 750 meters, with 3 minutes of rest after each 750 meter interval or 4×750 r3:00 in rowing shorthand. The latter was done for this month’s c2ctc.com challenge, called The Red Line Rev Up, after the rowing club whose idea it was. The Apple Watch graph of HR recovery for two minutes immediately following the 4×750 r3:00 is below this paragraph:
As a final warm down, I rowed gently for 5 minutes. The recovery graph after the 5 minute warm down is not worth looking at since the heart rate was already so low at the end.
A comment about the “race”: Since I so seldom row hard, I wasn’t sure what pace to attempt. The first 750 meters was attempted at a pace of 1:48 but that turned out to be too fast, when I started having trouble getting enough air into my lungs with each inhalation. So I did the next two 750 meter intervals quite a bit slower. Those seemed a bit too easy, so I did the final interval a bit harder than the middle two, but slower than the very first interval. As a result, the graph of pace for the string of 4 intervals is shaped a bit like a lop-sided bowl.
Here are screenshots relating to the rowing done today:
Finish screen for the 10K warmup. It was done online but nobody else noticed it in time to join, so it was done alone.Report for the 10K warmup.Graphs for the 10K warmup.Concept 2 online logbook charts for the 10K warmup.Finish screen for the 4×750 r3:00 “race”.Report for the 4×750 r3:00 “race”.Graphs for the 4×750 r3:00 “race”.Report for the 5 minute warm down.Graphs for the 5 minute warm down.
The Apple Watch’s new workout recovery measuring feature showed a satisfactorily steep recovery curve during the two minutes after today’s 8K.
Today’s indoor rowing took a lower priority than visiting the dentist, running errands and other things not worth listing. One thing that might be worth listing among “other things” is that I printed a few cards onto business card stock and will carry some of them with me when out of the house, so that I can give them to anyone who shows what seems to be any real interest in exercising on an erg. What the cards look like is shown immediately below this paragraph.
If some of the people who are lucky enough 🙂 to get one of these cards take up indoor rowing and also row on the internet, perhaps I’ll have a bit more company in this time zone when rowing online. That would be nice. The image above shows the front view (left) and the back view (right) of what each card looks like.
Because today’s rowing was started late, it was less than the usual minimum goal of 10K in order for me to finish before dinner time. But at 8K, it was close and it felt like it did some good.
If you look at the heart rate graphs for today’s session report and notice that the graphs are messy again, I think that’s because in addition to the strap transmitter having a low battery of between 40% to 60%, the strap wasn’t wet enough when the session started. It’s a cloth strap and only works when it is wet. Also, my skin was dry. And the room was a bit cold. So, with the moderate pace of rowing, it took quite a while before there was perspiration enough for the heart strap to be optimally conductive to the heart signal.
The session was at an easy pace but it was fun and mentally absorbing because once again I avoided watching a distracting movie and instead just focused on the rowing, counting strokes and other mindful rowing-oriented thoughts.
Here are today’s rowing session screenshots:
Finish screen for today’s 8K session.RowPro report for today’s 8K session.RowPro graphs for today’s 8K session. It took a while for the heart strap to become sufficiently wet with perspiration, for it to conduct the heart signal reliably.
Looking forward to a couple of race-pace sessions sometime this month: For c2ctc.com, I’ll do this month’s challenge which is called The Red Line Rev Up. And for the Indoor Rowers League, the challenge event for November is to do 6,344 meters at race-pace. I’ll probably do the c2ctc challenge first. For the Indoor Rowers League challenge, I’ll wait until toward the end of the month to do it, so I can see how the others in my age group do, and choose which of those times to use as a target to beat. 🙂
The plumber, while he was locating and dealing with the root-stoppage yesterday evening.
As warm-up before today’s rowing, I cut down three small trees. They were the most likely culprits for an invasion of roots into sewer pipe behind our house. The stopped- up drainpipe from house to sewer was somewhat of an emergency yesterday evening, which warranted a weekend and nighttime visit by a plumber who specialized in that problem.
Some of the results after cutting down two of the three small Palo Verde trees.
The area where the roots invaded was right under three small Palo Verde trees, so they were all three cut down today.
The catty trees left a few scratches.
Palo Verde trees are pretty when they bloom, but they are not nice to be physically close to. They are covered with stiff, needle-sharp thorns. The three scratches on my arm are three of a few scratches received while cutting and carrying away branches. A few cactus thorns managed to get stuck in my legs also. Ordinary results, it seems, when working near and among native desert foliage and plants.
Palo Verde trees don’t make good firewood either. If burned in a fire, the wood burns quickly and the smoke stinks.
As for today’s rowing: It was more fun than it had been the previous few days. The reason it was not boring and was fun today is: I didn’t watch any movies or videos to distract from the experience of rowing. The rowing was mindful, focused and sufficiently ethereal to be fun and mentally absorbing. Even though I rowed alone…. online, but alone. Sigh.
Finish screen for today’s 10K.Report for today’s 10K.RowPro charts for today’s 10K.Concept2.com online logbook graph for today’s 10K.
The tediously excavated hole. The bar laying across the top is the digging bar which was resorted to in order to break up and then remove the hard caliche soil a couple inches at a timeThe planting pamphlet said the optimal depth is about 2 1/2 feet, which is what the measuring tape indicates.
Before writing about what’s mentioned in today’s title, the most important event of the day should be mentioned: The whole hole was completely dug today and is now ready for the planting of the flowering bush for the hummingbirds. Photos above, of the finished hole and also a close-up to show that the measuring tape indicates it is about 28 or 29 inches deep, which is supposed to be optimal depth. After the bush is planted, I’ll try to put a photo of it in a future blog post.
This is a tiny picture, courtesy of Ace Hardware, of the problem-solver tool which made it possible to dig the hole in the very hard caliche soil. It’s generic name is a digging bar but it’s also called a San Angelo bar (by Collins Axe, the manufacturer) and a “caliche bar” by local people to this area.
The title of today’s blog post was chosen because I’m wondering whether or not it was a coincidence that yesterday’s heart hiccups (palpitations), which had bothered me all day and all through yesterday’s rowing, were remedied by taking 5 mg of Cetirizine yesterday evening. Cetirizine is the chemical name for the brand name antihistimine called Zyrtec.
Yesterday evening, I was still bothered with the heart hiccups and its BPM was a lot faster than normal. In the past, I’ve resorted to 1/2 tablet of Zyrtec some evenings, because though I have no allergies I’ve noticed that it helps me sleep through the night. Yesterday evening, I thought that if the heart hiccups continued, I’d have a hard time sleeping that night, so I took 1/2 a dose of Zyrtec (about 5 mg of Cetirizine) at about 8:30 or 9:00 pm. By 10:00 pm, the heart palpitations disappeared and the pulse returned to its normal resting rate. So I’m wondering if it was a coincidence or if taking the Cetirizine helped stop the palpitations. I may never know, but if it happens again, I’ll try Cetirizine again and see if the same results happen as promptly.
The above screenshots show yesterday’s recovery after rowing, when my heart barely slowed down even though I’d totally stopped rowing (the graph on the left) and today’s recovery (the graph on the right) when my heart slowed down quite normally. Curious, to say the least.
Today’s HR graph’s are much better looking than the sloppy HR graphs of yesterday, when there were heart hiccups throughout that session.
Finish screen for today’s online 10K session.Report for today’s online 10K session.RowPro graphs for today’s online 10K session.Concept 2 graphs for today’s online 10K session.
Digging the hole could be a two-man job, as long as only one man at a time gets near the hole.
Today’s main labor, time-wise, was working at digging a hole to plant a bush. The bush has flowers that hummingbirds like. Digging the hole is slow-going, because the soil is very hard and I had to use a pick and a digging bar, more commonly known locally as a “caliche bar,” to break up the earth so it could be scooped out.
I started the job yesterday, with a shovel, like the guy in the photo above this paragraph. But soon I had to resort to a pick, like one of the guys in the top photo above is holding. Today, I had to make a trip to the hardware store to get a 16 pound digging bar which is a steel rod about 6 feet long. It weighs 16 pounds, is pointed at one end and has a chisel-head on the opposite end. It works well, a few inches at a time.
The above photo of an impressively deep hole was found on a blog called Strandbortraum. The blog doesn’t have anything about rowing that I noticed. But it did have an article about digging a hole. It was on a page where the author wrote about digging a hole for the planting of a peach tree. A peach tree would need a deeper and wider hole than the holes needed for the bushes I’m planting.
By the time the hole is complete, it will not be as deep as the impressively deep hole in the above photo. It will only be a little more than two feet deep, but each inch requires a lot of pounding and scraping. If the thought occurs to me tomorrow, I’ll take a picture of the hole I dug.
For today’s rowing, the main session was 10K online in the company of a rower who was located in Canada. I mostly rowed a constant pace and he rowed about the same average pace but he did one minute or so sprints, every thousand meters or so. There was also a 5 minute warmup and warm down before and after.
The heart rate graph is very sloppy because the heart was “hiccuping” today. But otherwise everything felt normal.
